Hon Chinedu Onu, one of the governorship aspirants on the platform of Peoples Democratic Party in Enugu State, recently presented to the public a book on his agenda for the state. Onu discusses details of the governance framework, in this interview with Christopher Isiguzo. Excerpts: Recently, you made a public presentation of a book that contains your governance agenda for the state. Why did you choose to put your governance ideas in book form? I presented a compilation of my thoughts on the way forward for Enugu State for public debate and critique. I had it under the title, THE COURAGE TO DARE: ENUGU BEYOND 2015. One commentator who read the manuscript suggested that it should be renamed, “Enugu State: A Compendium of Proactive Development Strategies.” But we are keeping the original heading. Note that first, I took the pains to put my views and ideas down on paper. It took time, but you must also know that I did not start today. I cannot say I am a writer, but this is very important to me. So, in between my tedious work life as an entrepreneur heading a business with different branches, I disciplined myself to create space to put things down and later assembled all with the help of some of my friends and close allies. It is a process that started a long before now. I have confirmed it in various fora that my aspiration to govern my state did not start overnight. It is not something I went into because others are going into it. I have long been on it, convinced myself, prayed about it and I believe I am ready for the task. To me, it is about service. It is about serving my people and I have applied my mind to it and I am convinced that it is something I can do and do very well. I see it as a higher calling and I strongly believe that I am both psychologically and mentally prepared for the post. I also know what it entails and the challenges ahead. Why have you decided to present it publicly, rather than just having it as a proposed working document? The reason I took this seeming unusual route of calling out the public to share and exchange ideas on what is to be done, on what is the real needs of the people of the state, and not just what one person thinks, is that no single person can claim to know it all –two good heads, as is usually said, is better than one. I want you to view this as part of my on-going engagement process with the people of the state towards having an acceptable and enriched programme for the state. We need to get it right. We cannot afford to miss the present opportunity for us to take charge of our collective destiny as a people and see to true progress of our society now, in our generation, and guarantee prosperity for our future generations. I was with all strata of Enugu State – professional bodies in the state, town unions and other community-based organisations, traditional rulers, non-governmental organisations, the clergy and faith-based organisations, institutions, educational bodies, students and members of the academia, labour unions, youths and women groups, market associations, artisans and the general public. All who can come are encouraged to be part of the very important public discussion. What really is your agenda for the state, if elected governor? As governor, my priorities for Enugu State are, first, to revive the agro-based economy that sustained the defunct Eastern Region in Premier Okpara’s era and made the region one of the fastest growing economies in the world. My second priority is to frontally attack the high unemployment we are faced with today in the state. Our women must have jobs, our boys and girls go into all sorts of bad things because there are no jobs. I will achieve this by creating a parallel employing organisation to the state civil service. I prefer to refer to it as business service. We will reactivate and recapitalise the Enugu Marketing Company, just like the old produce boards, to buy up and market produces and products of Enugu State in all states of the federation and even export. The marketing company will buy up locally produced goods or agro outputs, package, brand and distribute all over the nation and overseas. Thank God for the international airport; we can be exporting fresh fruits, vegetables and spices grown locally on our soil all over the world. This arrangement is capable of providing over 20, 000 direct and indirect jobs to our people, which is comparable to our current civil service. The third priority of my administration is community government, which is a vehicle I wish to adopt for rapid development of our hinterlands and integrating the economies of the rural communities to the centre. Every community in Enugu will have an elected community government which will essentially be trading with the state and even outside entities – a proper government. They will be entrusted with the role of maintaining infrastructure and basic services in the communities like water supply, security, supervising village health posts and schools. We will achieve this by simply sponsoring an executive bill to amend the current Development Area Administration laws, creating the community governments as sub-units of the development centres already created and functioning currently. As governor of Enugu State, I will ensure that every community receives at least N2 million directly from the state allocation. I have done the numbers. But direct allocation is one side because the community governments will be supported to provide commonly-owned assets of the community for structuring into viable industries and enterprises, which will be owned and managed under their care. Through such, they can raise their own revenue and run their administration and pay their staff. Your party already has a consensus candidate, Hon. Ifeanyi Ugwuanyi. Why have you not aligned yourself with that decision? I have said many times that I am a good party man. I will abide by my party’s decision and policies at all times. At this very moment, the party has a sole candidate for presidential ticket and that is President Goodluck Jonathan. In the state, the direction is still to have the primaries on the set dates and I am prepared for the PDP governorship primaries of Enugu State. My supporters are eager and ready to see me victorious. That is why I am keeping faith with the set date for the party primary and praying to God. Let His will be done. Your party primaries have not been held, so why the rush to unveil your manifesto? To start with, I have no doubt that I will be the candidate of my party, PDP. This is because my intended programmes are wholesome and well aligned to the party’s overall manifesto and to President Goodluck’s Transformation Agenda. As we approach the party primaries, knowing my past work at the local government system, state level and federal levels currently, together with the plans I have for governing the state as laid out in my draft governance agenda, which I titled, THE COURAGE TO DARE: ENUGU BEYOND 2015, I don’t see any candidate that will beat me in an open unbiased contest, which is what we are looking forward to. Next, if we are talking about issue-based governance, pin-pointing and addressing issues concerning our people and our collective progress, the electorate, our people must be carried along from day one. The consultation process must begin as early as possible and it must be wide and representative. I need all ideas I can get now.
Posted on: Sun, 07 Dec 2014 21:14:12 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015